This invention relates to an insulator that wraps around, or is part of, a bicycle drink bottle holder that is affixed to a bicycle, thereby insulating the bottle without interfering with its insertion or removal from the holder.
Bicycling can be a strenuous and beneficial form of exercise. When exercising, people need to replenish water lost through sweating. When bicycling, because of the constant flow of air, typically warm air, over the body, which causes sweat to evaporate often immediately, people often do not realize the amount they sweat. However, the benefits of this invention are not limited to serious bicyclers. Even recreational or slow bicyclers seek liquid when they bicycle.
Most bicycles manufactured today include brace on mounts or lugs on the frame to which bicycle drink bottle holders (commonly called "cages") are installed. Even if mounts or lugs are not included, cages easily are installed to bicycle frames. Some cages are affixed to the seat of the bicycle or, possibly, elsewhere. The cage holds, but offers no insulation for, a bicycle drink bottle.
It has been observed that, for the same reason sweat evaporates for a moving bicyclist, warm air passing over a bottle warms the liquid in the bottle more quickly than if the bottle was just placed on the ground. Because cold drinks generally are preferred over tepid or warm drinks and cold drinks are absorbed more rapidly than warm ones, a number of methods or devices have been used to keep the liquid in bicycle bottles cool. Freezing the bottle with its liquid is one method. However, this does not delay the inevitable warming for long. Bottles that contain ice, either loose or in an enclosed smaller container, or a solid core of ice, suffer the same result. (These methods can be used in the present invention, with the result that the liquid will stay cool even longer.) Insulated bottles exist, but most bicyclists do not use them because of their cost, reduced storage capacity, difficulty to use or other reasons. Insulators that fit on the bottle suffer some of the same deficiencies and can interfere with the insertion and removal of the bottle from the cage. Bottle insulators that do not permit the bottle to be affixed to the bicycle also exist but for various reasons are not preferred.
It is observed that most bicyclists, especially serious ones and professionals, only use traditional bottles in traditional cages for lack of a better bottle insulator.